Features of SQL Agent Insight

SQL Agent Insight is a monitoring tool for Microsoft’s SQL Server Agent. It operates in the background allowing your DBA to focus on other critical day-to-day operations.

SQL Agent Insight is not a replacement for the native SQL Server Agent scheduler; it is distinguished from the native activity monitor and other products by providing an interface for determining problem areas across many monitored server instances without the requirement of installing an agent. Have a look at some of the key features below.

See how SQL Agent Insight compares to the native Job Activity Monitor in Management Studio and other products and why SQL Agent Insight is worth the free download. SQL Agent Insight is under continual development, adding features and improvements with each new release.

Monitor Multiple Instances Across Different VersionsCompatible with SQL Server Agent Windows version 2005 through to version 2017 with successful testing completed in SQL Server 2019 RC1.Monitor multiple SQL Server Agents concurrently.Monitored Servers Dashboard gives an overview of all monitored instances.

60+ Monitored MetricsAll metrics have their own configurable critical and warning thresholds for alerting and notification purposes.
Quickly determine key areas that have changed from configured thresholds with vibrant visual colors.
On-screen and e-mail alerting when thresholds have been breached.
Log long running jobs; determine what was running when and for how long.
Disable groups of metrics that do not require monitoring that may not be important for your organization.

Identify Future Job ContentionGantt chart showing scheduled conflicting jobs, 3 days in advance.
Quickly and easily see the status of all jobs including start time and the predicted finish time based on average run time.
Helps assist your DBA in pinpointing problem areas such as long running jobs.
Determine schedule conflicts before they become a problem.

Agent Job MonitorQuickly identify jobs and their current execution status with easily identifiable status colors.
Visually see an individual job’s success rate, schedule(s), running time, number of historical executions,
average and maximum duration.
Script any and all jobs.
Filter to show jobs of interest.
Agent Job Monitor is interactive; start, stop, enable, disable, rename, delete and view job properties!

With the release of v0.21, you can now pause jobs from running for any desired length of time and SQL Agent Insight will automatically enable them at the desired time! This is done without modifying the underlying schedule. No more forgotten jobs.

Job HistorySee much more than the native job history in SSMS, including total executions by status, job success rate,
a visual timeline of job run times, and average run time.

The DashboardA consolidated and concise view of all monitored instances.
Quickly see the most important metrics at a glance: Total monitored systems, Active SQL Agent services and DB Mail Sessions,
total jobs, total running jobs and their overall success rate.
Visually identify which systems are having issues and by clicking on its name, brings you direct to that Insight.
View all threshold alerts, centrally from one location.

Scripting Made EasyScript all jobs for a monitored instance at once, making for easier backups and replication to other servers.
Script all database mail configuration settings, profiles and accounts with a single click of a button.
Script any job based on criteria such as category and schedule.

Schedule SummarySee all server schedules, which are enabled, friendly descriptions and all jobs associated with them.
Filters allow a DBA to show which schedules are not being used, or have been recently modified.

Database MailDB mail profiles and accounts easily accessible in one view; easier to use than going through a wizard.
Access to the database mail log and its summary without the need to write cumbersome T-SQL scripts.
Gain access to database mail items; quickly see which mail has been sent, not sent, retrying or has failed.

No Installation RequiredClean, agent-less operation means nothing is installed on your SQL Servers*, ever, nor is there any client-side installation required either.
T-SQL and SMO are the only methods of gathering the data that you require.
SQL Management Objects (SMO) are included from version 0.20 onwards. This means there is not any requirement to install SQLSysClrTypes.msi or SharedManagementObjects.msi from the SQL Server feature pack!
SQL Agent Insight runs directly from any folder or from a portable USB thumb drive. Requirements can be found here.

* The not so fine print: If you opt in and enable the suspend/resume feature within the Agent Job Monitor, 2 new SQL Agent Insight jobs, 1 new schedule, and 1 new category are created within SQL Agent. This data is inherently stored within the MSDB database.

Other Notable FeaturesVisual taskbar notifications matching threshold severity along with e-mail alerting of trouble areas.
View all SQL agent registry values with the click of a mouse.
Visibility into all SQL agent log files consolidated into a single view.
SQL agent session history.
MSDB database size and when it was last backed up.
Consolidated agent operators and job categories views.